December 2023 Monthly Letter
All years have surprises for the financial markets, in addition to what I’m hoping for you, I also hope that there are fewer surprises for markets this year than last. 2023 surprises were harder than usual on investment managers and consequently, fewer managers than usual were able best their benchmark indexes. There was the recession that never came, The Magnificent […]
November 2023 Monthly Letter
Nines across the board! November delivered in spades this year and saved almost every money manager’s skin in the process. The November column below is a stack of 9’s for equity indexes – an unusually high correlation. And +4.5% for the bond composite is arguably stronger than the equity moves on a relative risk basis. […]
October 2023 Monthly Letter
While normally placed at the end of the monthly letters, let’s flip the script this month and start out staring at the performance chart below. We’ll stare not in any contemplative way but rather to absorb the unadulterated message that 2023 has been a year of the few – 7 magnificent winners and 493 not […]
September 2023 Monthly Letter
The month of September lived up to its dark reputation as the historically worst month of the year. As you can see on the performance chart below, it was the worst month so far this year by more than double. And when combined with August, following a robust first half of the year, it turned […]
August 2023 Monthly Letter
Welcome back! Wherever you traveled to or even stayed home, I hope you had the opportunity to mentally get away and re-charge for the second (shorter) half of the year. Personally, I find re-entry after vacations to be challenging. The market seems to feel the same way. As I write this holiday delayed monthly note (9/6), both […]
July 2023 Monthly Letter
Investors’ feelings toward stocks (market sentiment) remained positive in July. A drop in inflation and resilient GDP data buoyed those feelings – maybe overly so. Stocks did well across styles and around the world. The 3.21% gain in the S&P 500 Index was beaten by large and small caps domestically, and International Developed and Emerging […]
June 2023 Monthly Letter
Since this is your June report, let’s depart from the usual monthly view and look back and ahead by halves of the year. The year began with almost record pessimism and consensus expectations for a late year recession, a decline in corporate earnings, and lower S&P 500 year-end targets. All of this against the backdrop […]
May 2023 Monthly Letter
Except for 5 U.S. companies, May would have looked just like February in the chart below – a column of red. Except for what is now called the AI complex: the five companies with leading edge artificial intelligence software and hardware (Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Meta Platforms and Alphabet), May was a difficult month. It is possible, […]
April 2023 Monthly Letter
Economies: growth was as surprising in April as it has been since the start of the year – economic data showed that it was another positive month for the global economy, with growth remaining remarkably resilient in the face of higher interest rates. U.S., Eurozone and UK Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) surveys all beat expectations. […]
March 2023 Monthly Letter
The first quarter of the year is in the books (chart below, YTD). Against an almost uniform bearish consensus, for the first half of the year at least, global growth generally surprised to the upside all quarter. Lower energy and oil prices probably played an important role in the improvement in business sentiment, along with […]
February 2023 Monthly Letter
Helped by falling inflation and hopes of an imminent end to the global monetary tightening cycle, the year got off to a strong start in January. However, resilient economic data in February led to a move higher in bond yields and a decline in equity markets. Markets have been infatuated with the Fed’s plan […]
January 2023 Monthly Letter
As this month’s report is a little later than usual (with apologies), there isn’t too much to write that has not already gotten to you through my Morning Notes. January’s black in the chart below says all you need to know about the start of the new year and its stark departure from last year’s […]